Beschreibung:

The Feeding of the Five Thousand, in a historiated initial from a manuscript of Augustine, Tractatus in Iohannem, in Latin, on parchment [Alsace (perhaps Strasbourg), c. 1460-70] Single initial 'M' (most probably opening "Miracula quae fecit Dominus ...", tractate 124) on a cutting, trimmed to edges, the initial formed from pink bars of scolling foliage enclosing two scenes, to the left peasants and children drinking from a mountain stream as a tiny dog laps at the water in the foreground, and the most prominent figure bites a loaf of bread, to the right Christ distributing loaves to two of the Apostles, all on a brightly burnished gold ground, remains of 15 lines of text in a rounded late gothic bookhand on reverse (with text from tractate 124), somewhat cockled, but without damage to paint, small scuff at foot and small flake from gold in upper right corner, overall presentable condition, 82 by 105mm. This finely detailed initial shares a provenance with the two initials that follow in the next lot, and all three trace their origin onto the market to a group offered in Sotheby's, 5 July 2016, lot 16. There connections were made between the scenes here and a copy of the Gutenberg Bible that was illuminated in a Strasbourg printshop in the late 1460s (see P. Needham, 'A Gutenberg Bible Used as Printer's Copy by Heinrich Eggenstein, ca. 1469', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 9, 1986, pp. 36-75).